Mozambique: Three murdered, 100 houses burned in new attack

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Mozambique: Three murdered, 100 houses burned in new attack

3:33 CAT | 07 May 2019

in file CoM

Gunmen killed three people and burned one hundred houses in a village in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, local observers announced on Sunday.

The attack targeted in the village of Minhanha, Meluco district, according to the network of election observers at the Mozambican non-governmental organisation Centre for Public Integrity (CIP).

The network is observing the electoral registration process for the presidential, legislative and provincial elections of October 15.

In addition to the crimes and trail of destruction, five of the 38 polling stations in the Meluco district have now been paralysed by the attacks.

According to the same observers, this was the fourth attack recorded in the last four days.

The first hit Nacate, Macomia district, on Friday, with voter registration material vandalised, but there were no casualties as registration officials fled after hearing the first shots, CIP reported on social media.

Observers report that six were killed in the village and several houses burned.

CIP observers also reported attacks on the villages of Ntapuala and Banga Velha, with four people murdered – one, a teacher shot while driving a motorcycle, and three persons burned alive inside homes.

Sources linked to humanitarian assistance in the Macomia district confirmed four of the reported deaths to Lusa over the weekend.

Since October 2017, attacks by unidentified armed groups allegedly originating in mosques have caused at least 150 deaths in Cabo Delgado.

Hundreds of humanitarian personnel are currently on the ground in the province after the April 25-26 Cyclone Kenneth – the first to reach northern Mozambique since official records began and classified as Category 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 (from weakest to strongest).

The cyclone killed 43 people and affected about 250,000, according to the latest provisional authority assessment.

The armed attacks led humanitarian operations to reassess the situation in the area of the attacks over the weekend, but the distribution of aid continues.

In total, WFP has already provided food assistance to nearly 50,000 people in Cabo Delgado since Cyclone Kenneth struck the province, the agency told Lusa on Monday.

Mozambique was hit by two cyclones in the same rainy season (November-April) for the first time this year, after Category 3 Cyclone Idai hit central Mozambique in March, killing at least 603 people.

Source: Lusa